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A Manifesto for Hyperdensity

We cannot expect big American cities to reach their potential when the very professions that purport to defend and perpetuate urbanism recoil at the presence of towers. Left rudderless by the experts, we are forced to inhabit the bleak consequences of a poorly regulated marketplace, analogous to a population that must operate on its own cancers due to the confused surgeons who keep cutting away at the healthy tissue.
— Places Journal

Americans are famously conflicted about urban development: somehow we've demonized both sprawl and density. But today there is a new conversation about the future of cities, driven by diversifying social desires, evolving technologies, and pressing environmental constraints.

On Places, in an excerpt from the new book A Country of Cities: A Manifesto for an Urban America, Vishaan Chakrabarti contributes a bold argument for hyperdensity. The very dense city, he says, not only promotes prosperity, sustainability and delight; it will also determine our strength as a nation.